Australia’s liability insurance market is entering a new phase. Following several years of premium strengthening and improving underwriting outcomes, pricing momentum is beginning to moderate across parts of the market. At the same time, evolving claims experience, competitive pressures and emerging risks continue to reshape the outlook for insurers, brokers and policyholders.
KPMG’s Liability Insurance in Focus draws primarily on the latest APRA National Claims and Policies Database (NCPD), covering experience to December 2024, to explore the trends shaping Professional Indemnity (PI) and Public Liability (PL) insurance. Drawing on two decades of policy and claims experience, the analysis considers pricing, exposure growth, loss ratios, claims frequency, severity and finalisation patterns across a range of portfolio dimensions.
The report highlights selected areas where headline market results can mask materially different underlying experience, including excess bands, jurisdictions, Management Liability, D&O and Cyber. More recent industry developments are also considered where relevant to provide current market context.
Our analysis of Australia’s liability market
What comes next?
The analysis draws primarily on the latest available APRA NCPD data, covering experience to December 2024, together with more recent industry developments where relevant to provide current market context.
APRA is expected to release the next NCPD update, covering data to December 2025, over the coming months. KPMG intends to refresh the analysis as the new data becomes available, providing an opportunity to assess recent market developments against the emerging evidence and revisit the trends highlighted in this edition.
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Our insurance team combines deep sector knowledge and extensive experience to address the risks and opportunities that matter to insurers as they navigate a rapidly changing environment.
If you have any questions about the report, or how we can support your organisation, please contact us.
- Dr Brendan Rynne
- John Munnelly
Frequently asked questions
Several years of premium strengthening have supported improved loss-ratio experience across parts of the liability market. As pricing momentum moderates, future performance may depend more heavily on underlying claims frequency, severity and portfolio characteristics. The impact is unlikely to be uniform across liability classes.
That is increasingly the key question. PI has benefited from declining claim frequency alongside premium strengthening, while PL has relied more heavily on premium growth to offset increasing claims severity. With pricing momentum moderating, the balance of factors supporting recent experience is changing.
PI shows evidence of faster early claim closure, while PL claims appear to remain open for longer. These diverging patterns may change how claims emerge over time and increase the importance of understanding the mix and characteristics of claims remaining open when assessing ultimate outcomes and reserving uncertainty.
Headline market averages can mask materially different underlying experience. KPMG’s analysis identifies differences in loss-ratio experience by excess level and jurisdiction, including comparatively high loss ratios at lower excess levels and higher loss ratios in Victoria across selected liability segments. This reinforces the importance of understanding the underlying characteristics of individual portfolios rather than relying solely on broad market benchmarks.
The analysis points to three areas of focus: maintaining pricing discipline as market conditions become more competitive; understanding changes in claims frequency, severity and emergence at a more granular portfolio level; and assessing exposures that may cut across traditional product boundaries. Historical market averages remain useful context, but increasingly may not tell the whole story.
